Custom NCAA Football 2010 covers

Sorry it has been a while since I've updated, but I've been busy making custom covers for NCAA Football 2010 (among other things). SO I thought I would share them with you to print for your Xbox 360. Just follow the lin below and see all of the custom covers I created.

Collection of NCAA Football 2010 covers created by Automic Reviews

Watch House Season 5 online... FINALLY!

So I unfortunately have missed most of Season 5 of House MD and haven't found any place to stream it online other than the 5 episodes on Fox.com / Hulu / Fancast. I bought a few on iTunes, but it gets pricey.

I Googled it a little bit earlier today and finally found this:

FreeEpisodesOnline.net: House (Season 5)

Disclaimer: I do not endorse the hosting of copyrighted material on the Internet. But if it's out there, I'm not saying I won't look at it.

Review: NCAA Football 2010 Demo

This week, EA Sports released the NCAA Football 2010 demo, available for download on the Xbox Live Arcade. For this review, I am only going to talk about the game play since that's all that's available in the demo.

I'm just going to come out and say it right off the bat, I hope this demo is nothing close to the real game. While it has some cool new features, it has more negatives than positives and that just won't fly with a fan base who is tired of Electronic Arts repackaging the same game with a different bow and one new whistle year after year. If you want to argue with this and say that because it's a one year advanced game it has to be better, I'm sorry but you couldn't be more wrong. NCAAF 2003 was much better than 2004. NCAAF 2007 was one of the worst sports games I've played on the Xbox 360 console along with MLB 2k6 and the entire NBA Live franchise.

New doesn't mean better, but in the case of NCAA Football 2009, it did. I saw 2009 as the best of franchise. Maybe is was pasting Darren McFadden on the cover that tickled my fancy or the addition of the Online Dynasty, or maybe—just maybe—EA finally got the game play right for a change. While there were things that seemed to be a pain in the butt (like receivers trying to toe drag as if they were falling out of bounds in the middle of the field, inevitably forcing them down at the spot of the catch), it was the smoothest NCAAF game I have ever played. Players didn't run a 3.9 forty yard dash, their were less loop holes, not every quarterback could throw accurately on the run. Needless to say, NCAA Football 2010 has a lot to live up to and it's not going to sell anyone on “cutesy” cinematics.

Like I do when making any life changing decision (such as whether or not to try the new Angus burger at McDonald's), I've come up with a list of pros and cons of this game to help me review it. Shall we?

Pros:

• Tackle animations. The new tackle animations are pretty good overall, but sort of got repetitive. If they mix in those from 2009, we should be good to go.
• Cut-scenes. I do like the cut-scenes a lot in between plays and during the kickoff. These add to the experience of the game as if it were being televised. If I remember correctly, these were in the 2007 game.
• Erin Andrews. Erin Andrews joins the broadcast team this season as the sideline reporter, giving injury updates via audio rather than just having to read it. Plus, we get to see Erin Andrews.
• Injury choice. After a player gets injured, as long as it isn't serious, a prompt comes up letting the user choose whether or not to continue playing this player or to bench him for a while. In older versions of the game, we had to go to the injury report menu to do this.
• Uniform customization. This year you have COMPLETE control of what uniform your team wears. You can individually customize helmets, jerseys, pants, socks and shoes in any variety before each game.

Cons:

• Player lock. While I'm sure a lot of people will enjoy this, I didn't. The main reason was because once you are locked on a player and the ball snaps, there's no going back so you better hope the rest of your defense is as smart as you. If I'm locked on an LB while running Cover 2 and the offense goes deep, I cannot switch to my safety for coverage help. That doesn't fly with me. Plus, pressing in the left thumbstick is the button to engage this. In 2009, this button was used to either pump up or silence the crowd. There's no reason Player Lock is programmed as this, it should be the right thumbstick.
• Hit sensory. In the demo it's not programmed correctly. If the ball carrier is dragging my defender forward and a safety dives forward to knock him back, the demo doesn't pick up the safety. Another thing I noticed was when I returned a punt, somehow the defender spun me around, despite there being a good gap between my player and the computer's (meaning it never came in contact with me).
• Hurry up encroachment. When the offense ran the hurry up offense against my defense, encroachment was called against a defensive player I was not controlling... he was just sitting across the line of scrimmage and the poor programming caused the offensive line to come in contact with him.
• Let me go back. I jumped offsides while blitzing with the OLB. While standing on the opposite side of the LOS, it didn't matter how hard I pushed the stick backwards, he wouldn't budge. I had to press “B” to change my player in order for him to move back onsides.
• Spider senses. If you are the quarterback and you're about to get sacked, even from the blind side, your controller starts vibrating to warn you. I don't get it.
• INT camera. When you pick the ball off, the camera angles changes from in front of the defense to behind. This is nothing new. But now you're able to move your defender while the camera is rotating; therefore, first you'll start by pulling the stick towards you then rotating it forward with the camera's changing angle to help you optimize your speed. Realistically, this is slowing you down by a few steps. It should just keep all motion frozen until the camera is behind you like the older games.
• Coach cam. It mainly bothers me on the offensive side of things, but when you want to look at your play (such as WR routes, etc.), all the angles are much different than how it looks in your play book. I understand that the post routes are meant to be more accurately to the post itself, but the WR aren't able to get good enough cuts on their routes. Plus, the animations within them are childish.
• Catch the ball. If you're WR is running a crossing route and your throw is anywhere below the waist, the receiver won't make an effort to reach down... he'll just let it hit him in the legs and keep running.

While these are many of the pros and cons in the demo, I'm sure I'll come up with more later to add to this post. I understand this is the demo and it's two teams that every player has a 99 rating (which is NEVER fun), there were more problems in this demo from my point of view than there were with the 2008 and 2009 demos combined. Hopefully EA will have everything fixed by the July 14^th release.

NCAA Football 2010 Demo Rating: 6.5 / 10

Turtles In Time Re-Shelled: Why update the graphics?

I’m sure by now most everyone is aware of the fact ScrewAttack.com’s No. 1 Beat ‘em Up of all time, TMNT: Turtles in Time, is making its way to the Xbox Live Arcade on July 22nd. 18 years after its original release on the arcade and 17 after it’s birth on the SNES, the game is getting a whole new, High Definition, 3D, make over.

That’s what I don’t like.

Officially titled TMNT: Turtles in Time Re-Shelled, Ubisoft has taken over the original Konami classic updating the graphics to make them look more “Next-Gen” approved (just like Lode Runner). I honestly do not get the reasoning for this. One of the reasons for re-releasing this game was for the sheer sake of online co-op just like TMNT: The Arcade Game, which is still one of the top selling titles on the Xbox Live Arcade and it didn’t change the graphics one bit... When I play it today I feel like I did as a little kid, teaming up with my buddies at Chuck-E Cheese beating up the Footclan.

Is the 3D “re-shelling” really necessary? To me, updating the graphics, in its own special way, is making it another game. To my knowledge there have been no additional levels added to the gameplay, just a complete re-skin of a classic. I’m just still trying to figure this one out. I understood the Street Fighter II: HD Remix, that was totally fine. If Ubisoft wanted to follow Capcom’s lead on this where the graphics would be less pixilated, I’d be all for that. That’s not the case.

To the younger generation being introduced to this game for the first time, they might not notice anything at all. But to my generation, the one who grew up on Nintendo systems, we’ll buy this game with our Microsoft Points, but it won’t hold its weight like TMNT: The Arcade Game still does.

Left 4 Dead 2 forced to change box art

Those overprotective mothers at the ESRB (Entertainment Software Rating Board) are in the news again, but this time it has to do with a certain video game’s cover.

Anyone who is familiar with the Xbox 360 can recognize the box art of Valve’s Left 4 Dead, a survival horror game released in November 2008. The box art features a zombie’s crippling hand with four of the five fingers sticking out to give emphasis to the “4" in Left 4 Dead.

Valve is now releasing the sequel, Left 4 Dead 2, in November 2009 (AKA five months from now) and the marketing team cleverly came up with a new box art that not only adds the number two next to the title, but now the hand has all but two fingers chewed off, obviously signifying that this is the second game.

The ESRB was not too happy about this and has forced Valve to change the cover from the ringer and pinky fingers being chewed off to simply being bent forward.

While this may not seem like a big deal, if you look closely, it seems as if the zombie hand is now giving the “peace” sign (or “V for Victory” for our friends across the pond), rather than putting an emphasis on the game’s gruesome nature.

Are the bitten off fingers really that disturbing?

First Thoughts: Milo and Kate

This is the second part of my “First Thoughts” that I started a little over a week ago on Project Natal. Here I want to look at Milo and Kate, Lionhead Studios current key development for the project in which the user interacts with a virtual boy or girl as if you were really viewing each other via webcam (Think the Fable II dog evolved times 100).

Right now this project is obviously in the VERY early developments as what was shown at E3 2009 is the majority of what we know so far. By turning your head left or right you can change the angle of the camera, zoom in or out by standing closer or backing away from the TV, hopes of having actual conversations with voice recognition as well as other unique interactions like helping Milo or Kate build their own tree houses. Pretty cool stuff.

But now the question has to be asked, what is the limit of Milo’s (I’ll reference Milo now for either him or Kate) learning ability? We will assume that it won’t have the programming to learn on an endless plane giving us a real life look at 2001: a Space Odyssey in households across the planet, but that doesn’t mean its learning climax won’t be creepily high with the ability to expand via DLC.

Now I’ve never been the one to believe that technology will one day rule the planet and there’s no stopping it. I don’t think that Microsoft is the new SkyNet and I don’t think Milo will become HAL. I’ve always felt that while we as human have come dependent on technology, technology is more so dependent on us and the main difference between humans and technology is our ability of logic, reasoning and rationalization. ScrewAttack.com had a very well-written video spoof on Milo the other day that really brought these ideas to life (almost too much so). If you haven’t seen it, you might want to check it out here (language warning). I don’t think Milo will be programmed with all of these abilities, but in order to please the masses I thought I’d at least touch on the subject because as much as I hate to admit it, there is a 0.01% chance that this is an actual possibilities.

Consider the masses pleased.

Another thing I wanted to look at was whether or not Milo will be an Xbox build of the Tamogachi, or will it be something new altogether. The way I see it, that’s all it seems like to me, a Tamogachi on the TV; a virtual “friend” who I can interact with while I’m bored or mess with as I go to sleep, not a game. In the eyes of chief developer Peter Molyneux, he sees it as an actual game and according to him, a game must have a beginning and an end (which is weird because I still haven’t met anyone who beat World of Warcraft). So if Milo & Kate is an actual game with an objective, what is it? Do we raise our virtual kid from birth and see them through college graduation and pay their tuition with Microsoft points (if you’re a stranger to sarcasm, this is what it sounds like in text)?

I do not get the game aspect of this. To me, this seems more like a hobby than anything else—another promising attempt to bridge the gap between the Xbox 360 and casual gamers. I honestly do not feel that there should be a game aspect of it whatsoever in terms of an overall objective with an ending. If this project needs an objective, how about it’s to keep Milo a happy kid? If this were really a “game,” it would be something I might invite my friends over to play, but that’s not the case.

I don’t mind the development of this project, it’s a very interesting step forward for technology and software development, but let’s not make it into something it’s not.

Samus and Baby Metroid: BFF

Got bored last night and made this video: